Kommentaarium kui ajakirjaniku töö mõjur
Date
2012
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Tartu Ülikool
Abstract
Readers’ comments as the factor on journalist’s work.
Keywords: readers’ comments, user-generated content, participatory journalism, citizen
journalism, interactivity.
The objects of study of the current Bachelor’s thesis were ten journalists from four Estonian
publications (postimees.ee, epl.ee, ohtuleht.ee, delfi.ee) with who semi-structured interviews
were carried out. The method of analysis of the empirical material was unstandardized content
analysis. Questions asked during the interview were divided into subgroups of research questions
and the method of horizontal analysis (case-by-case analysis) was used in order to monitor the
responses of each respondent during the entire interview.
Readers’ comments have not been previously studied from journalists’ perspective in Estonia
and also elsewhere in the world this problematic area has been addressed only recently, thus it
was the right time to start studying this area in greater detail also in Estonia.
The current thesis searched for answers to three questions: how journalists perceive the impact of
readers’ comments in their work, how the functioning of the readers’ comments impacts
journalists in complying with the code of ethics and what journalists can do in order to protect
their articles and sources in readers’ comments?
The current thesis aimed at studying the factor that the journalists perceive in readers’ comments
in their work. To specify the aforementioned, whether journalists see readers’ comments as
disadvantageous or beneficial, whether readers’ comments helps to develop new ideas, facilitate
journalists’ work and to what degree journalists start communicating with the online article
commentators who have addressed them. In a situation where journalism is regulated in
democratic society by the Constitution and the agreed journalists’ code of ethics, one of the aims
of the current thesis was to study whether the functioning of readers’ comments could place the
journalist in a situation that contradicts clauses 1.4, 1.5, 3.3 and 3.4 of the journalists’ code of
ethics and the corresponding ethical and moral values. In addition to the above, attention was
drawn on what journalists could do in order to protect their article and source in readers’
comments and what is the impact of the readers’ comments on the author of the article and
thereby on the journalistic content of the publications.
Journalists see the beneficial side of readers’ comments, however, in most cases they do not use
it, rather it is used for identifying spelling mistakes, finding pieces of information and additional
information, getting material for a new article, however, in case of the latter not in the first
priority.
The disadvantage of readers’ comments lies above all for journalists who address delicate issues
in the sources who do not want the reader’s comments to be available next to the article and thus
refusing to be interviewed for the article. Additionally, another disadvantage was seen in the fact
that reading the comments written with regard to their articles may bring about moral harm to the
author of the article.
Unlike the research results from the United States of America, Estonian journalists are more
modest when reading the comments written with regard to their articles. However, there are not
any major differences in responding to the readers’ comments. In most cases no response is
submitted to the comments.
The dilemma raised in the interview brought four journalists into contradiction with the clauses
of the journalists’ code of ethics under consideration and the values representing these. The
current thesis does not state why, however, it proposes possible reasons: the extent of
responsibility is not perceived in readers’ comments, it is not clear for the journalists whether the
readers’ comments is an area of responsibility of the publication, lack of professional education,
etc.
Journalists do not see the possibility of protecting their arguments in readers’ comments or
protecting their source, but rather providing beforehand psychological counselling to the source
or deleting the comments are seen as possibilities for protection.
In summary, both the respective studies carried out in the United States as well as the current
thesis show that the readers’ comments may serve as a useful tool for the journalists and thereby
have positive impact on the creation of journalistic content.
The study carried out with journalists from 11 European countries demonstrated that 60% of the
respondents agreed that journalism benefits significantly from starting to communicate with
readers. (O’Sullivan and Heinonen 2008, via Steensen 2011).